lovely christmas, with civilization

We had a lovely Christmas Eve, which flowed into a very nice Christmas day. Yesterday, we had a little (very little) Christmas open house with pot luck. The eclectic menu included devilled eggs, sausage balls, pizza, ham and chicken noodle soup. I love these truly pot luck dinners that my folks started having on Christmas Eves when we stayed home for the holidays. Most of our Christmases were spent with my dad's family in Wichita Falls, TX.

This year, almost everyone I invited had other plans all ready. Something about being out of town made it hard to come over, or something. Still, we did our pot luck, and enjoyed it, and watching a couple of movies, and visiting.

Today, we woke Raine up at the crack of 10:30 to open presents. She enjoyed herself, building a fortress of wrapping paper and surrounding herself with gifts.

excited about every gift.

She draped the scarf that her grandmother made her on her head as soon as she opened it up. (sometimes she channels her Aunt Scarrie) I think she wore it almost all day, including while reading before bed. Opening presents on Christmas morning is another one of our Christmas traditions.

When I get done with this post, I will be reprising one of my personal Christmas traditions, passed down from computer to computer, from the days of the first Amiga version of Sid Meyer's game, Civilization. Every holiday, and it seems especially Christmas, I would find myself playing into the wee hours of the morning. There always seemed to be ONE MORE TURN that I should take. As the holiday drew upon us this year, I got the itch to play Civ again. In fact, it seemed to be that something that might be missing, otherwise. Oh, sure, I play it other times - sometimes too often and too long - but the holidays just tripped a trigger for me I wasn't even aware I had created. Now, I you will excuse me, the English need to discover some new technologies, and explore their world!